Carla Neggers - Breakwater

Gerard felt his spine straighten. “Oliver, you might not want to divulge more.”

“You’re right. I’m just-” He clapped a hand on Gerard’s shoulder. “I’m just contemplating what might have been. Come in for a drink before you leave.”

“I shouldn’t. I’ve had too much to drink as it is.”

“Gerry…I had nothing to do with Alicia Miller’s death.”

“If I thought you did, I wouldn’t have come near this place today.”

“Stay, Gerry. Let’s talk.”

But a stiff-backed Travis Lubec was waiting just off the patio to take him back to his boat. Gerard wanted to go back to Washington, but wondered what would happen if he said no. He told himself he was being ridiculous, he was getting paranoid-thanks to Steve Eisenhardt.

“Of course, Ollie. We’ve known each other a long time.” He met his friend’s gaze. “I’d be happy to stay and talk.”

Quinn ducked into the bedroom and changed into jeans, a sweatshirt and water shoes, wondering what had possessed her to fall so hard for Huck, because that was what she’d done. If Vern Glover hadn’t shown up, she had no doubt she and her undercover marshal would be in bed right now.

She hoped she wasn’t responding to some need to remind herself that she was alive and had done her best by Alicia-that kissing Huck Boone/McCabe on her doorstep wasn’t just about the risk, the adrenaline rush of being around him. He was sexy, confident, irreverent. She liked him.

On the other hand, he was pretending to be a bodyguard. She’d never seen his badge. She’d never seen him off duty. She couldn’t picture where he lived, didn’t know who his friends were, what he liked to do when he wasn’t working undercover.

Basically, she didn’t know much about the man at all, she thought, tying back her hair. But as she finished up and shut the bureau drawer, she caught the reflection of her bed in the mirror and saw that the bed linens were askew. She’d been too preoccupied to notice sooner.

She felt a crawling sensation and, grabbing an antique wooden canoe paddle she’d meant to stick on a wall, returned to the kitchen.

Her silverware drawer was partially open, but she was positive she hadn’t left it that way.

Quinn walked into the bathroom and found an entire drawer dumped into the sink. Bottles of aspirin, antihistamine, antacid tablets. Her first-aid kit.

She checked the guest room. It was torn apart-bureau drawers, bed linens, closet.

Heart pounding, Quinn grabbed her cell phone and dialed Kowalski’s number. She didn’t reach him and left a message, then called his pager number.

While she waited for him to call her back, she headed outside, half hoping to find Huck or Diego Clemente on her doorstep.

An osprey circled over the salt marsh.

Alicia had tried to tell her something.

“The osprey will kill me.”

Quinn unlocked the shed and dragged her green kayak down to the water. She figured she was just as safe-safer, actually-on the water.

Although she had mastered a quick entry into her kayak, she nonetheless always managed to get wet, especially since her cove wasn’t the best spot for launching. At least she was more appropriately dressed for the conditions than the last time she’d paddled, when the initial shock of Alicia’s death still had her in its grip.

But as she paddled out to the mouth of the cove, Quinn felt a range of emotions, none of them simple.

There were babies in the osprey nest. It was high up-no way could Alicia have left some kind of message in the nest itself.

Quinn placed her paddle across the cockpit and let her kayak bob in the water. Maybe there was no meaning to any of Alicia’s ramblings at the coffee shop, and she’d been focused on ospreys just because she had them in her head.

A coincidence, not a message.

Sitting quietly in the kayak, Quinn looked at the shore and saw more osprey nests. She counted five without even trying.

And Alicia, she remembered, had launched down the shore-where there were more nests.

So many.

The kayak bumped against the buoy pole, hitting a dark blue line tied just under the water. Quinn couldn’t recall ever having seen it before. Careful not to tip too far in one direction and capsize, she dipped her hand into the cold water and pulled on the line, feeling a weight on the other end.

“What on earth?” she said aloud, splashing water from the line onto her boat, her sweater and jeans, but ignoring the cold, the discomfort as she continued to reel up the line.

In another few seconds, she heaved a small, black waterproof bag, hooked securely to the line, onto her lap in the cockpit.

Her fingers cold and wet, she managed to open the bag.

Inside were a clear plastic bag and a prescription bottle.

Quinn dried off one hand as best she could and pulled out the bottle, gasping when she saw that it was leftover prescription-strength ibuprofen from an old knee injury. She thought she’d left it in her bedroom nightstand.

Ten to one, she thought, it didn’t contain ibuprofen.

She held the bottle up to the light and saw blue pills…different pills.

Whatever they were, Alicia had taken them, thinking they were ibuprofen.

But who’d switched the pills?

Steve. He knew about Alicia’s reaction to antidepressants. Brian had said Steve was there when she’d talked about it.

Quinn didn’t dare open the bottle and risk accidentally spilling the contents into the bay. She carefully returned the bottle to the bag and checked the clear bag, just peeking inside at the contents.

Pictures, printed off a digital camera.

Two color photos were clearly visible on the top sheet. Rocking in her kayak, she focused on them.

The top photo was of two crates of weapons. Grenades, mortars. Very illegal.

Beneath it was a photo of a small, rustic hut.

On its roof was an osprey nest.

Quinn quickly closed up the clear plastic bag and tucked it back into the waterproof bag. She hadn’t taken her cell phone out onto the water with her. She hoped Diego Clemente had seen her and was on his way-that Kowalski was just around the corner.

Where had Alicia gotten such pictures?

When?

Quinn made sure the black bag was secured and dropped it back into the water.

Alicia had tried to tell her. Agitated, frightened, out of her head-she’d done what she could to tell everyone.

Including the wrong people.

The mama osprey dive-bombed toward her nest and Quinn, the intruder.

Moving fast, out of the angry bird’s path, she paddled straight for shore, using the wind to her favor. The closest, easiest spot to reach was the stretch of marsh where she’d found Alicia.

No wonder she ended up here, Quinn thought, leaping out of the kayak into the water and dragging it ashore.

“Quinn…help me.”

She thought she’d imagined the voice. Alicia?

“Quinn!”

Quinn picked up her kayak paddle. “Who is it?”

“It’s me, Steve.” He was on his hands and knees in a snarl of brush and small trees, blood dripping down his left arm. “Please-Quinn, I need your help.”

Paddle in hand, Quinn shook her head. “FBI’s on the way. You need to tell them everything, Steve-you hear me? Everything.”

“I know, I know.” He staggered to his feet, half sobbing. “Just help me…”

Quinn couldn’t work up any pity for him. “You’re a son of a bitch, Steve. You switched my prescription ibuprofen for some kind of antidepressant. You knew Alicia would react-”

“I didn’t make the switch. I just told them about her reaction. If it’d been me-I never would have left any pills behind after she died.”

“It was you in my cottage-”

“They wanted to know what she was up to-how much she knew about them.” His voice croaked, more blood dripping down his arm, the shirt sleeve red with blood. He seemed to be in genuine agony. “I told them nothing, only that she wasn’t spying on them. They wouldn’t believe me. I had to tell them about her reaction to antidepressants. I hoped it’d just give them room to maneuver. I thought the pills would make her weird, not suicidal.”